Josephine Jacobsen

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Josephine Jacobsen (August 19, 1908 – July 9, 2003) was an American poet, short story writer, and critic.

Born in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, she moved with her family to New York at a young age. When she was fourteen, she moved to Maryland where she lived for the rest of her life. Jacobsen served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress from 1971 to 1973 and as honorary consultant in American letters from 1973 to 1979. She served as member of both the literature panel for the National Endowment of the Arts and of the poetry committee of Folger Library.

She was a prolific writer of poems and short-stories into her ninth decade. Joseph Brodsky praised her poetry for its "reserve, stoic timbre, and its high precision."

Jacobsen is the author of several collections of poetry, including In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems (1995), The Chinese Insomniacs: New Poems (1981), The Shade-Seller: New and Selected Poems (1974), The Animal Inside (1966), The Human Climate: New Poems (1953), and Let Each Man Remember (1940). Among her awards are an Academy of American Poets fellowship and the 1997 Poets' Prize (for In the Crevice of Time). She received honorary doctorates from Goucher College, The College of Notre Dame in Maryland, Towson State University, and Johns Hopkins University. She was inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994.